The List

Features

Business

Commentary

It's
been rather a long time since I published my first set of
predictions regarding the state of the world in 2020, but
despite what some might think the delay is most definitely
not due to any intention on my half to wait until December
31st 2019 to make further forecasts!

The reason for the delay is actually the far more prosaic
need to engage in what Oscar Wilde once described as the
'curse of the drinking classes' - or, for those of you not
familiar with the Irish writer's witticisms: work...click
here for more

It's
not an easy task trying to predict the future; just ask the
former president of IBM, Thomas J Watson, who, in 1958,
confidently stated that 'there is a world market for about
five computers.' Or the 19th century British MP, who
extrapolated from the rate of population growth in London at
the time, and the number of horses needed to support such
growth, that by the middle of the twentieth century the
capital would be six feet deep in manure...click
here for more

Here
at Bonne Gauche, we often
talk about cars, watches or design items being 'cool' -
referring, perhaps, to an intrinsic, effortless elegance
that differentiates the items we revere from those that are
merely functional, ugly, or are trying too hard. The
underlying notion is that the possession of cool items
confers some of their inherent coolness on the owners.

To a certain extent this is demonstrably true: the
impression that we may form of a man climbing out of a
Facel Vega
would be quite different to the impression of the same man
exiting a Vauxhall Vectra, or worse, a Porsche Cayenne...click
here to read more

The
supercar in its true format, (and by this I mean an enormous
mid-mounted V12 engine, and aesthetics as subtle as a Peter Stringfellow
swimwear collection), is an enigma to some car enthusiasts.
Too expensive and heavy for track use, they say, yet too
wide and unwieldy to really work on most roads, they view it as a type of car
that, like the more hapless species of endangered animal, is not really
adapted to its current environment.

For much of the 1990s and early 21st century, though, this
didn't seem to bother those who patronised the primarily
Italian grand marques; most bought supercars not to drive,
but to show to the world their considerable wealth...click
here for more

Shortly
before he blew his brains out with a hunting rifle, the
French chef, Bernard Loiseau, proclaimed that if he ever
lost a Michelin star he would 'kill himself'. If anyone in
France had doubted the importance of the Michelin Red Guide before Loiseau's suicide in
February 2003, his death quickly led them to change their
opinions. In the home of haute cuisine, at least, stars still mattered.

In the UK, though, it is difficult to imagine anyone
resorting to such drastic measures. Stars are highly sought
after by the high end of the market, but they aren't
regarded as awards literally to die for. Many British
restaurant reviewers are even openly critical of what they
regard as the Red Guide's tendency to give primacy...click
here for more

June
2007. It may seem, from our current viewpoint,
to be almost part of a wholly different age; as if we are
Russians remembering the last days of the Tsars from the
other side of the revolution, or soldiers fighting in the
Great War's trenches recalling the final hours of peace. Things were
different then.

No doubt this differentness, and the shift in society that
began a month later, in July 2007, will be noted and debated
in the coming centuries by innumerable historians. And, in
their search for the iconic moment that...click
here for more

Visit
any popular Mediterranean resort mid-season and it won't be
long before you are offered an array of fake luxury goods -
from watches to perfumes, clothes to handbags. Depending on
the persistence of the seller, and your own personal opinion
of the counterfeit industry, your response may range from
mild interest (no sane person would ever express more than
mild interest in front of these sorts of sellers, who can
detect a sitting duck at a thousand yards) to absolute
contempt...click here for more

The
passage of time can have a strange
effect on the perception of design. Sometimes the initially
well-loved can quickly become the staid and cliched, whilst at
other times the widely derided can eventually come to be appreciated decades after its original inception.

Take some of Erno Goldfinger's brutalist creations, such as
Trellick Tower in North Kensington; high rise, reinforced
concrete tower blocks that were despised by most in the
1970s, yet which are now Grade II listed buildings...click
here for more

With
every half baked publication jumping on the 'it's the end of
the world' recession/depression bandwagon (having recently
alighted from the 'it's the end of the world' global warming
one), I have been reluctant to write about the current
economic malaise in my column. The world has steered its way
through worse crises before, and will inevitably steer its
way through worse crises in the future, and adding my own
voice to the growing noise on the subject has seemed to be a
largely pointless endeavour...click
here for more

The
above statement (and note
that it is not a question) may imply that I am mad, or at
least
delusional; after all, having dominated Formula One over the
last ten years, and produced a string of class leading
supercars, the marque has seemed to have hardly put a foot
(or should that be a hoof) wrong. And with profits of over
260 million Euros in 2007, there is not even the usual
financial instability to cloud the sky.

But, in my eyes, at least, Ferrari has been irrevocably
damaged by a combination of brand dilution, changing
buyer profiles, and, more worryingly, the production of cars
that are more brutally functional than beautiful...click here
for more

In
times of economic hardship, investors often seek refuge in
supposedly counter-cyclical industries. Such industries may
benefit from a downturn or recession, and can aid investors
in the difficult task of making reasonable returns in a bear
market.

What industries these are is open to debate, but I would
suggest that investors could do worse than taking a look at
those 'designer' clothing manufacturers who produce suits in
sizeable quantities.

What is my rationale behind this assertion? Quite simply, it
is the observation that in times of economic difficulty,
office staff tend to 'dress up' .. click here
for more

A
few weeks ago, after an al fresco dinner at a marina on a
well known Mediterranean island, I took a brief stroll past
the assorted motor boats that were silently and statically
engaged in some sort of unspoken competition with each other
for both size and opulence. The monotony of glass fibre,
overdressed crew members and enormous plasma screen
televisions on the decks was broken only by the occasional
sailing boat, sitting almost incongruously between the vast
gleaming hulls of the latest 37 metre Sunseekers...
click here
for more

Not
so long ago, when Berlin was a city of two halves and a Trabant
was an object of desire for most of the inhabitants of the
USSR, as it was then known, any Russian drinks makers who
boasted of patronage by the Tsars would probably have
received a short and painful visit from the KGB. Yet today,
nearly twenty years on from the raising of the Iron Curtain,
premium vodka makers, in particular, have a curious
fascination with the late Russian aristocracy, falling over
themselves to claim that their own brand 'evokes the spirit
of the Tsars'... click here
for more